Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Mao Yu City is ten days into an outbreak of Silent White Widow?”

It’s a struggle to keep his voice even. Based on the unopened, yet incredibly urgent missives in Mu Qingfang’s hands, the villagers had realized more or less immediately that something was wrong and taken steps to try to contain it.

But Mu Qingfang had occasion to respond to an outbreak with his teacher, once, before he had been Qingfang. Du Anyun had chosen him to accompany the team deliberately, almost certainly because of his flaws rather than his strengths.

He had still been young and inexperienced, and too conceited to have become a truly good doctor if nothing changed, he would readily admit now. A little too heartless. The well-bred son in him had never quite been able to help but judge commoners in the back of his mind for the way disease tore through them, the way they seemed to create so many of their own problems.

Was it so hard to dump waste far away? To properly wash the linens, even just once a week? To make sure their water was clean before using it? Could they not see the way keeping their livestock so close was unclean, the way wearing the same unwashed garments day-in and day-out caused their rashes and made disease spread easily?

It turned out that it was and they could, thank you very much. Few people were ever filthy of their own volition. That well-meaning but ignorant young master, used to having many others around to pick up the slack and grease the wheels for him, did not yet understand how much work simply staying alive required of most people, let alone doing things “properly” on top. If a servant spent all day on her knees scrubbing linens for the wealthy, was it any wonder she had no energy left for her own family at the end of the day? And as he learned on that trip, in ways that still haunted his dreams sometimes, some diseases simply didn’t care. They spread through means no ordinary person could be expected to understand or respond to, even if they had the tools, and they usually did not.

Silent White Widow was one such malady, a deadly disease ordinarily found only in the Demonic Realm or the borderlands where the flies that carried the disease lived. Infection of humans was largely either accidental or incidental, but when it did happen, it could wipe out entire cities inside of a week.

Not only would any bodily contact with a sick person spread the disease, so would cleaning up after them or even just breathing the same air. Anything a sick person touched would stay contagious for hours, even under direct sunlight, and ordinary cleansing agents couldn’t dispel it until the contagion’s store of demonic energy ran out. The bitter, terrible irony was that the cure was so readily available and easily prepared.

Fragrant Honeydrop Meadow Mushrooms could be found easily in almost any temperate forest in the Middle Kingdom, occasionally within the forest itself but-- as the name implied-- usually forming large clusters in forest meadows. Though sweet-smelling and pleasing to the eye, they actually didn’t taste very good, so people largely left them alone.

If Mao Yu City was ten days into an uncontrolled outbreak, it was likely that Mao Yu City didn’t exist anymore.

He must be failing to fully keep his thoughts off his face right now, he thinks, because the disciple kneeling in front of him jolts like she’s been pricked with a needle and hurriedly speaks up.

“They are still alive. They are definitely still alive, Mu-shishu! Our scouts ran to verify immediately while we sought you out!” An Ding’s Shi Yao assures him with a pinched face and cracking voice. “Send this one at once, I beg. If movement is still visible in the town, there is still hope that I can take responsibility. It is entirely this one’s fault…!”

“The missives were lost?”

“The missives were shuffled in with a great deal of routine mail,” she all but weeps, “due to… that is, this is usually the time of year when Mao Yu City sends its regards and negotiates for supplies. It was assumed that the missives were regarding an ordinary desire to restock usual medicines--”

“Shizhi can start making amends immediately,” he interrupts, not unkindly. An Ding disciples are trained to snap back from shock and bounce like tree gum, for better or worse. Given the prospect of work to do, she’s already getting her stuttering breath under control and wiping her face. “Send the scouts who reported on the town’s condition to me and tell my Head Disciple to summon the masters to convene before the hour of the dog. They should come prepared to recommend either themselves or a senior disciple to respond the emergency in Mao Yu City. Head Disciple Xiao should report to me immediately after.”

At this stage, even a half-shichen more to prepare and depart will undoubtedly cost lives, but failing to properly prepare would cost more.

Shi Yao is up and running to deliver his instructions almost before he’s done speaking, and Mu Qingfang takes a moment to collect himself. But only a moment.

By the time Yue Qingyuan and Feng Qinghui arrive, Mu Qingfang has met with his disciples and taken reports from the scouts. Although the village gates are shut and activity is low, not only does it appear that people are still alive, business is proceeding more or less as normal.

“One-third of the market stalls appeared to be open and operating, with people going door-to-door making deliveries of things or carrying things away. We could not tell from this distance what was being exchanged, though.” The enchanted lenses used to remotely observe towns and villages in Cang Qiong’s proverbial shadow were powerful, but they could only discern so much.

Spyglasses had been one of the masterstroke inventions brought back to the sect by Shang Qinghua ten years ago. According to those who knew him at the time, the man had made himself unbearable for months begging to be allowed to go on an extended trading mission, getting shriller and more theatrical by the day in his apparent burning desire to travel. The Peak Lord of An Ding at the time had finally snapped and chased him with a broom, supposedly, asking why in the world he had joined a sect just to run away from it. The next day, he had been given truly miserable spending purse and shoved out the door with instructions not to return until he had something worthy of a courtesy name to show.

He had. The spyglasses were just one example. Apparently, he had felt inclined to be very, very certain of being accepted back.

“Or whether the residents are still humans,” Feng Qinghui remarks darkly.

Yes, that’s also a concern. The Peak Lord of Mo Shu would know better than most.

If the disease was reported accurately, there shouldn’t be anyone left alive, unless some rogue cultivator happened to know the cure and happened to tell them. Stranger things have come to pass, but it strikes none of them as likely enough to bet on. On the other hand, if the remaining ‘residents’ were actually demons or wicked cultivators, things might start to make a great deal of sense. It would be quite easy to wipe out a population of humans with a demonic disease and then harvest the bodies (the people going door-to-door?) for ingredients in demonic cultivation.

Then again too, they might have reported their own symptoms inaccurately. And though Mu Qingfang isn’t personally aware of any diseases that mimic Silent White Widow, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

The possibility of demonic infiltrators means that Bai Zhan will need to send a response along with those from Qian Cao and Mo Shu…

A warm, broad hand on his shoulder brings him out of his musing, and he finds Yue Qingyuan peering at his face with more actual feeling than the man ordinarily allows himself to show.

“Be careful,” he says. He seems to struggle over more for a moment, but all that comes out in the end is: “I cannot send Liu-shidi with you, but watchers will be assigned. Do not hesitate to send up flares.”

“We will proceed with all possible care, Zhangmen-shixiong.”

As it turns out, the lot of them could have stumbled in Mao Yu City drunk and barefoot and still suffered no casualties.

A large group of uniformed cultivators traveling at speed on their swords is eye-catching under any circumstance, and the local magistrate’s servants are already waiting to receive them when they land at the southern gate.

“Master cultivators…!”

Mu Qingfang steps off his sword to listen to them, but a raised hand keeps everyone else ready to take off at a moment’s notice. A subtle pulse of qi confirms that both of the breathless manservants speaking to him are human, with no trace of demonic contamination. If demons were actively moving around town, or if they were still incubating the disease, it would have been otherwise. Which begs the question as to why these two visibly were sick, and now are not.

He pretends he can’t feel the Bai Zhan disciples wilt behind him at his hidden gesture, but makes a mental note to bring it up with their master later. Expressing disappointment that thousands of civilians weren’t murdered and replaced by demons for want of a fight is unfitting behavior.

“-- Everyone has been cured?” the Peak Lord finds himself asking, other concerns popped like bubbles in the face of such an extraordinary claim. “How can that be possible?”

“Master cultivator, as far as the town’s physicians can tell, the malady has been cured in everyone who has not already died, and only twelve people died.” For some reason, that exact number touches his spine with a finger of frost, but the sensation is there and gone within a moment. Thereafter, his overwhelming reaction is numb shock. Twelve? Only twelve?

“A boy owned by the local brokerage apparently knew the cure, and gave it to his master, who shared it with the rest of the city. But we would greatly appreciate it if the learned masters would consent to verify, and of course, we are prepared to offer what lodging and food we may if the esteemed ones find it necessary to stay overnight.”

Mu Qingfang blinks hard and gathers himself. “Of course.”

That’s not what he wants to say. What he wants to say is, Who? How, again? A slave? A child slave? Where did he learn? How did he recognize the disease? How did you manage to keep it from killing everyone long enough to adminster the cure? What are you wearing on your face?

A shichen later, he’s confirmed along with the masters that accompanied him and the few local physicians that the disease really is completely gone. He’s also confirmed that everyone in town is wearing those fabric masks like form-fitting veils, that they’ve been continuously brewing and administering the cure on an interval since the broker’s servants returned with the materials three days ago, that the city long-sinced organized laborers to collect and remove contaminated waste, and that all of this was done at the direction of a nine-year-old boy who’s been living in the same slave brokerage since he was born.

Now that boy is squirming in front of him on a stool, and Mu Qingfang is starting to wonder if the surprises will ever stop coming.

He had never actually been sure he believed the rumors about Shen Qingqiu frequenting brothels.

Mu Qingfang takes a very slow breath and lets it out.

“You said your name is Shen Yuan?”